Wireless flaw snags restoration project's unveiling

Potter County commissioners learned Monday the cutting-edge wireless communications system installed in the restored Potter County Courthouse will not function as designed. Solving the issue could cost the county up to $3 million.

Potter County Facilities Director Mike Head checks restoration work in the Court of Law 2 courtroom. Courtroom 2 is the pinnacle of the Potter County Courthouse restoration with its high ceilings, white oak wood trim, faux marble wall coating and wood-inlayed judge's bench.

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A bombshell of a glitch landed in the laps of Potter County commissioners Monday, five days before the scheduled unveiling of the restored courthouse.

The cutting-edge wireless communications network recently installed in the building is “unstable.” Possible solutions: Spend $3 million — almost a fifth of the project cost — to add cable, or hire more people to keep the wireless system running.

“This is our worst nightmare,” said Commissioner Joe Kirkwood.

Office computers, phones and handheld devices — everything except the heating and cooling controls and panic alarms — are supposed to run on the system, said Shawn Gill, head of the county’s information technology department. Officials thought the system would bypass the need for extensive rewiring during the rehab of the 80-year-old courthouse.

But Gill said the $250,000 network won’t do what the county needs it to do, mandating that it either be replaced with cable or that two more workers be hired to manually reset the network when it fails. Workers recently discovered the problem.

“At one point Tuesday, we had to reboot 26 times,” Gill said.

The county purchased the system from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Meru Networks. Company representatives did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

“I don’t believe it will work better than 70 percent,” Gill said. “If you’re asking me for something I can guarantee will work, I would say cable the building.”

That option didn’t appeal to county Facilities Director Mike Head.

“If you decided today to hard-wire, that would be the last thing I would do,” he said. “I would suggest hiring more people.”

Abandoning the wireless system would require tearing into newly finished walls to add conduit pipe to hold the wires. To do that, the county must get approval from the Texas Historical Commission, which gave the county a $5-million grant for the reconstruction.

County staff’s move into the structure would be delayed for months.

Officials were planning for a Sept. 15 move-in following Saturday’s 11:30 a.m. rededication ceremony on the west steps.

If more construction is required, it would mark the fourth delay in the project since Austin-based contractor Journeyman Construction began work in November 2009.

The original completion date was Aug. 31, 2011, but commissioners extended the deadline to Jan. 21 because of delays tied to the building’s age along with additional construction requests, Head said at the time.

Commissioners began fining Journeyman $1,200 per day after the January deadline passed and set a June 9 completion date. The county took possession of the building following substantial completion, meaning there are a few tasks to complete. The project is 200 days past the Jan. 21 deadline.

Still, the hurdles to reopening appeared to have been cleared — until now.

“It’s embarrassing to be dealing with this,” Commissioner Mercy Murguia said. “We can’t have a $15-million building we can’t move into.”

Gill and employees of AMA TechTel, a local business that has consulted with the county on other wireless projects, are trying to find a fix for the problem.

“A lot of features are turned off to make it more stable,” said Mark Bennett of AMA TechTel.

Bennett said the network is supposed to support up to 300 devices.

Workers have struggled to get the system installed and running for several weeks after other construction delays kept them from gaining access to the building until recently.

“There’s a solution out there,” Head said. “We just haven’t found the right one yet.”

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This is really funny and really sad at the same time. Am I the only one who has set up my own home with my Internet, phone, and printers working perfectly for a little less than 3 million? I know the courthouse is a lot bigger than my home but.....seriously? Perhaps I too could hire on an extra hand here at my house to reset my Internet each time it crashes.. ( which is rarely). I will offer to set up a wireless router somewhere in the middle of the courthouse and have everything up to speed by the end of tomorrow afternoon for T-wenty dollars and T-wenty ribeyes. I will thus save 3 million dollars which they can then use to install a robot/android that will answer the phone for people who aren't there or can't take calls at that time. Ain't technology wonderful .....?

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"The county purchased the system from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Meru Networks. Company representatives did not respond to requests for comment Monday."
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Wait just a minute...the county is NOT going to MAKE the company who's responsible for the network fix it?
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If it's the company's fault, then SUE THEM!
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Meanwhile, do what you have to do until you get a judgement in the county's favor.
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The blame may go to several parties and with the blame goes the liability. Who designed this part of the project, and did they represent that it would work? Who chose the subcontractor? Did the sub say this approach would work, or only that it would be done in accordance with somebody else's design? This is going to get real messy!

I bet the AGN would like to rewrite the editorial that ran in Saturday's paper.

The "officials bypass" something as important and necessary as the communications system!?
I guess the officials were somewhat right when talking about how long that $450.00 per gallon of paint on the window frames would last. It appears to have already outlasted the communications system. As kanelis would say "elected officials are best able to make these decisions"

I was not then or now throwing rocks. I was just stating a fact then, just as I am now.

Now, lets see how good a company Meru Networks is. I think the question before us is, will they send their representative here to answer questions and to correct their system without costing us a lot of money?

I hope Shawn Gill will not have to spend another three million dollars to fix this problem. If the building has to be hard wired, it is better to do it now before it is occupied. I wonder what it would have cost to have the building hard wire in the beginning?

In the meantime, I will be waiting patiently to see this project completed and tour the building with the rest of the citizens.

Potter County did not buy the wireless system from Meru, they bought the system from AMA TechTel. This is a coverup to try and protect the county and AMA TechTel's reputation. The newspaper should ask for copies of checks, I guarantee you AMA TechTel sold and installed the wireless system, not Meru.

This is the case nationwide. Infrastructure is so damaged, communications so out of date that millions, possibly billions needs to spent to up grade existing infrastructure. We need ............ We need people to realize that building America does not mean hiring staff or electing more officials. We need............American Government is bloated and foundering now, as we speak and the infrastructure that guides them is decayed and crumbling. Yes, it is a Catch 22 and no Obama does not have any of the answers America needs. The fact remains that everyone has their sacred cow or bridge to nowhere. Well these projects are not infrastructure and they are not NEEDS of the people. Stop the pork, stop the waste, stop the over regulating and start rebuilding America one job at a time, one brick at a time. It worked before, it will work now!

As the person that resets the wireless network here I have learned there are 2 problems, first check to see if the cat is laying on the wireless router, then call the ISP because it is down. Who is the ISP?

I've had similar experiences, both in business and privately. Technology is oversold. The people we deal with tell us that the technology works and have very few problems. This is true of the cell phone companies, the dish companies, cable companies and many others.

The sales people do not know anything about their products other than what's in the slick brochure

The sales people rarely understand the features or how to use them

The installers take shortcuts and do shoddy work (because it's all hidden) and finally the technicians are not well trained on the equipment, and there are too few technicians available for what's been sold around the area, resulting in long waits, inadequate trouble shooting to determine the problem, and delays and excuses for why they can't get things working as promised.

AmaTechTel and the manufacturer should endure the cost overruns if they can't get the problem solved with what they sold. The $1200 per day fine should acrue to them and they don't get paid a dime for the system until it is up and running as advertised.

If it takes $3 millon to hardwire, the costs should be deductedfrom what is owed for the inappropriate system. If the county stupidly paid up front for the system, they are owed a refund, and should take whatever legal means to do get it

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I think it would be up to me to make what I sold work the way I said it would for the price I proposed and was agreed to. The platform selected should have been virtualized to assure it would work "on Paper" before depolyment into production. Regardless, if they need two people to reset the system until it is fixed, both of those folks should draw a paycheck from the vendor who installed the system until the issues are resolved. Pouring more tax money into the vendor is simply irresponsible.

If AMA TechTel has sold a system that doesn't work, then it should be on their dime to fix or replace the system. If it hurts, then they will learn quickly and fix the issues. If they are given a blank check to continue down the same road, why would they rush to fix the system if they have revenue to replace the expense of repairing a faulty installation and configuration? Why pay twice for the same work?

Meru has a mixed history. The decision to install this system was either on low bid alone, or it was a buddy deal. If the money starts flowing to the vendor, My money is on the buddy deal. Regardless, taxpayers should demand that the installing vendor do the right thing and make the system work that they have already been paid to install. If that means canning Meru and buying all new Cisco equipment, then that's the gig, get busy.

Something is not passing the smell test here. When was this network installed? All the time this remodel was going on no one ever checked or tested it? No one on the county side (head) doing something of quality control? Who was the one individual with the county that recommended/ suggested this system? What is their connection to amatechtel?

Who ever decided to go wireless should be fired. Wirless being nice that you're not locked into one location should never been a option for the entire building. They should have setup the building with gigabit ethernet and a set of wirless satellites on each floor for roaming laptop users. The ethernet which is far faster is like two people talking on phone where the wireless has speeds like the dail-up only with clear data flow. Sounds like someone was under the misconception that wireles was latest and greatest. This is far from the facts. Maybe Gill didn't have much input on the plan. Being the guy in-charge of the countys IT department would know alot better than the guy with the checkbook. 100 -150 Mbps vs 1000 Mbps, where would you put your money?

" Officials thought the system would bypass the need for extensive rewiring during the rehab of the 80-year-old courthouse. "

The building was a civil defense building and a storm shelter. it was built to with stand bombings and attacks. Oh wait today IT people would not understand any of that since they do not teach it in college any longer !

Secondly, the No Bid Good Ole Boy system is at work even when people cry it is not. One bid usually means no REAL BIDs . So, the infrastructure and communication advances of today have no real impact on an 80 years Storm Cellar !

Serioulsy though, poor Shawn Gill got stuck with a dud. He wasn't dept head when the system was discussed and chosen. Now he has to answer for and repair someone else's poor decision and lack of planning.

You're absolutely right. Having worked with wireless in buildings that were strongly reinforced, I can tell you that a lot of the construction can cut signals quicker than anything.

The best solution would be to hardwire the majority of the office computers, while having enough wireless hotspots to accomodate mobile devices most of the time. Wireless is not as reliable as wired, and no matter what the salesman will tell you, will ALWAYS have security that can be compromised.

I've looked at Meru for networking, and from what I've seen, I'm not overly impressed. Most likely, AMA has an affiliate agreement, and, rather than look at what is best for their customer, they simply looked at who was paying them the most money.

I just installed redundant networks in 28 convienence stores for a client. We surveyed, planned and mocked up the network before installing any equipment. Once deployed, we found that one of the two cellular backup vendors did not connect and pass data on roaming towers, as they promised. I bought 15 new cellular modules, at $8000 cost, and replaced and tested each one to make sure the network is running as sold. So, on my company's dime, we fixed the problem. We advised the customer all the way so they had ample notice of the issues and the steps we were taking to resolve them. They did NOT recieve a bill for the additional work. They did recieve the product as sold, for the price agreed to. If your network folks aren't competent enough to deliver the same level of service, you have contracted with the wrong vendor.

Shawn Gill had over two years to plan, evaluate and decide on the wireless solution. It was HIS choice and reccommended by AMA TechTel. At least two other companies reccommended not using Meru based on problems that had been encountered by other companies right here in Amarillo with the Meru equipment. This project was doomed to fail, due to poor planning, research and real actual testing.